


Daisho

by manic_intent



Category: Ghost of Tsushima (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Full spoilers, M/M, That AU where Ryuzo was Jin's retainer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25524418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “He’ll live,” Lady Adachi Masako said as she emerged from the room, closing the shoji door behind her. As Ryuzo started forward, Masako held up a palm. “But he needs rest. As do you.”Ryuzo ran a palm over his face, shaky with exhaustion. He’d allowed one of Masako’s daughters-in-law to bandage his injuries, dressed now in borrowed clothes that’d belonged to Masako’s sons, too short at the wrists. “Thank you,” Ryuzo said.
Relationships: Ryuzo/Sakai Jin, Sakai Jin/Ryuzo
Comments: 28
Kudos: 289





	Daisho

**Author's Note:**

> …So I still have feels. Rather than annoying my friends by vomiting my torrential feels on them every day, I guess this is another AU. TBH Jin seems to be one of those friends who will die for you… but ONLY if you ask him to haha. It doesn’t seem to occur to him to use his initiative sometimes. This fic is about an early exercise of initiative: what if Jin asked Ryuzo early on to be a Sakai family kashindan instead of just randomly abandoning his best friend to his own devices after embarrassing him at a duel. 
> 
> Again, full spoilers for the game, especially for Masako’s questline.
> 
> S
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> P
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> I
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> L
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> R
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> Dayum, was every female character in the game done a dirty except maybe Tomoe, lol... I felt so sad for Masako and Yuna.

“He’ll live,” Lady Adachi Masako said as she emerged from the room, closing the shoji door behind her. As Ryuzo started forward, Masako held up a palm. “But he needs rest. As do you.” 

Ryuzo ran a palm over his face, shaky with exhaustion. He’d allowed one of Masako’s daughters-in-law to bandage his injuries, dressed now in borrowed clothes that’d belonged to Masako’s sons, too short at the wrists. “Thank you,” Ryuzo said. Masako looked away, out to the courtyard. The light from the lanterns etched darker lines over her face, hollowed-out by grief. Ryuzo hadn’t just fled here with Jin; he’d brought ill tidings with him. 

“I’m sorry about Lord Adachi. And your sons.” Ryuzo had barely survived Komoda Beach himself. He’d been knocked out by a stray blow, waking up under a heap of bodies, somehow missed by the Mongol knife teams. He’d found Jin barely clinging on to life and a pair of stray samurai horses and ridden north, trying to outpace the Mongol patrols as they swarmed over now-defenceless clan holdings and villages. When he’d reached the Adachi holdings and found it still intact, Ryuzo had nearly collapsed with relief. 

A relief that was probably going to be short-lived. Masako nodded bleakly. Her husband and clan kashindan had died to a man on Komoda Beach, leaving the clan's women behind. Women of the samurai class were trained how to fight, but holding out here against the Mongol horde was going to be impossible. 

“Get some rest,” Masako said. She inclined her head and left, heading for the archery grounds, where the sounds of women practising drifted faintly over. The Adachi women and their attendants had donned armour after Ryuzo had shown up with the bad news, readying themselves with a stony fatalism that Ryuzo wished he didn’t share. 

Stifling a yawn, Ryuzo quietly opened the shoji door Masako had emerged from and frowned. Masako’s older sister, Hana, was bent beside Jin, her back to Ryuzo. “Lady Hana?” Ryuzo said.

Hana flinched back, scattering whatever she had on her lap. She gathered it up quickly and turned, smiling nervously. The great beauty that Hana had once been was still there in her poise and her eyes, but where Masako had aged into immovable flint, Hana had softened, a softening that she hid poorly under chrysanthemum scent and brilliantly dyed clothes. She bowed. “Ryuzo. I was checking on Lord Sakai.” 

“Didn’t Lady Masako said he was going to be fine?” 

“It doesn’t hurt to be certain.” She rose to her feet, bowing again. “Please rest. Your wounds were not minor.” 

“I’m still walking. They’re minor,” Ryuzo said, with a halfhearted smile. Hana didn’t return it, bowing nervously again and leaving, closing the shoji door behind her. Strange. Maybe she was one of those women who didn’t like being alone with men she didn’t know. Ryuzo knelt by Jin’s side, watching his even breathing. The scent of medicinal herbs rose thickly from his heavily bandaged chest and back. More bandages crossed his arms and thighs. Jin’s handsome face looked drained of colour, death-like. The pallor frightened Ryuzo. 

Ryuzo poked his nose. “Hoi, Jin,” he murmured. “You didn’t make me a Sakai kashindan to just sleep through the rest of this war, right? Wake up. Your uncle needs you. The Adachi women probably need you…” Ryuzo hesitated, looking over his shoulder absently at the window and the sounds of practice. “Or maybe not. Old Lady Masako is just as scary as she used to be. Remember when she caught us stealing dango from the kitchen as kids? She scolded us so much, wah, I thought I was going to die. Lord Adachi had to intervene. Laughing all the way.” Ryuzo exhaled. “No one deserved to die like he did. I couldn’t tell her.” 

“Maa, this hurts,” Ryuzo grunted as his wounds ached anew. He shifted to get more comfortable and stilled as he saw a faint smear of purple powder on the tatami mat. 

Swiping a sample of it up and sniffing it, Ryuzo frowned. Strange astringency, yet a little floral. It didn’t smell like any of the medicinal herbs that Ryuzo had ever seen or sampled as part of his kashindan training, when he’d been taught how to field-dress wounds and do basic first aid. Had it been from Hana? Ryuzo leaned in over Jin, checking his nose and mouth. None of the power seemed to have gotten onto Jin, whatever it was. Some folk remedy, maybe. Ryuzo would have to keep a closer eye on Hana. Good intentions or not, he couldn’t risk an accidental poisoning. 

Leaning by the shoji doors and cradling his katana, Ryuzo closed his eyes. He’d rest for a moment. 

Shouts of alarm startled Ryuzo awake, only for him to wince and clutch as his side as pain flared up from the gashes across his flank. He staggered out of the house and nearly walked right into Lady Miho, rushing past in full clan armour. One of Masako’s daughters-in-law. “What happened?” Ryuzo asked blearily. 

Miho slowed down. “We’re under attack.” 

“Mongols?” 

“No.” She went for the gate with her hand on her katana before Ryuzo could question her further. As Ryuzo started to follow her, Masako approached, grim-faced, her sister and grandchildren with her. The youngest, a baby, was cradled in Hana’s arms. 

“Ryuzo. Can you fight?” Masako asked.

“That’s an insulting question,” Ryuzo said with a grin that was probably ghoulish in the light. “Can a cricket jump?”

Masako sniffed. “I hope your sword arm isn’t as bad as your jokes. I’ll have Hana and my grandchildren shelter in the house with Lord Sakai. Defend it with your life. Miho, Yui, and I will try and hold back the attackers at the gate with the other women.” 

“Shouldn’t I be there?” Ryuzo asked, but Masako waved Hana over and stalked for the gate without a further word. “She still frightens me,” Ryuzo told Hana, watching Masako go. As Hana said nothing, only holding the child in her arms so tightly that he began to burble in distress, Ryuzo forced a smile. “Don’t worry. Just keep the children calm and try not to let them climb all over Jin. I won’t let anyone into the house.”

She nodded, chivvying the children into the house. Ryuzo found the broken pieces of his armour on a rack in the house and put on what he could, pulling on the scowling black mask. It hurt to pull on the set over his shoulders, but he gritted his teeth through it, working as fast as he could. Masako’s attendants had left him a full quiver of arrows and a half-bow to replace the one he’d lost on the beach. Ryuzo picked it up and pulled himself up onto the roof, grunting in pain. Settling against the thatch, he waited. 

It didn’t take long for the attackers to break through the Adachi line. Ryuzo didn’t have time to spare a thought for Masako or the rest. The first man who charged into the courtyard with an upraised hatchet got an arrow through his forehead. Ryuzo gasped in pain as he notched a second arrow to his bow. The next shot went awry, skittering into the packed dirt instead of finding its target. Ryuzo bit his inner cheek so hard he drew blood. The next was better, the arrow quivering as it buried itself in man’s chest. These weren’t Mongols. Bandits, maybe? The fuck was their problem, attacking a samurai holding when the Mongols were on their doorstep? Pity Ryuzo couldn’t spare the breath to yell invective at them from the rooftop. His next arrow caught an attacker in the thigh, another in the belly. Ryuzo had never been much of an archer, and exhaustion made his aim worse.

Cursing, Ryuzo jumped from the roof as a bandit neared the doorway, colliding awkwardly with him and stabbing him wildly through the chest as he scrambled to get to his feet. Ryuzo roared as he swung at the next, bashing past the bandit's shakily held blade and cutting his throat in a spray of arterial blood. Charging a man with a bow by a tree, Ryuzo cut him open from belly to ribs before he could draw his bow. Men coming up the slope to the courtyard faltered, wide-eyed with horror at the sight of the blood-drenched man in broken armour and a scowling mask. One at the back fled, screaming as he dropped his sword. The rest advanced. 

Ryuzo tried to concentrate on his training as they came at him three at a time, trying to hack through his defence from all sides. He huffed as he caught a blow high across his back that opened a bright line of fire down his shoulder, reversing his blade and stabbing back to skewer the man through his belly. Exhaustion and blood loss took their toll. A blow that should’ve broken a bandit’s hasty defence caught into a parry instead that left him open to a kick in the gut. Ryuzo gasped, coughing and rolling on the dirt, away from a blade that cut down where he’d been. He slashed wildly with his sword and got someone in the ankle. Kicking out, he got a lucky blow into the back of a bandit’s knee, sending him sprawling. Ryuzo plucked his tanto from his obi and buried it in the bandit’s throat. The last man yelled, katana held high as Ryuzo tried to bring up his blade to block. The bandit stiffened instead, choking as an arrow caught him in the throat. He collapsed to show Masako at the slope, bow still raised. 

A scream from the house. The children. _Jin_. Ryuzo somehow found the strength to push himself into a sprint. He shoved open the shoji door to Jin’s room with a roar and nearly fell face-first into the strange tableau: Hana with a dagger upraised over Jin, the oldest child—a boy of three, throwing himself protectively over Jin’s still form with his hands upraised. Hana let out a cry of frustrated rage as Ryuzo gawked, aiming the blade at the baby. Only sheer discipline saved the child: Ryuzo’s blade moved before his confusion disentangled itself, cutting off Hana’s hand at the wrist. 

“What… _Hana_?” Masako said in disbelief at the door. Hana ran for the window, clutching at her arm as she scrambled out. As Masako gave chase, Ryuzo sank to his knees, then down to his flank as the baby wailed. The other children stared, too shocked to make a sound. 

“Families, hm?” Ryuzo told them, and passed out.

#

Ryuzo woke up on a futon with Jin kneeling beside him, cleaning his katana. Some of the colour had returned to his cheeks, but bandages were still visible under his kimono. “You look like shit,” Ryuzo said, his voice hoarse.

Jin dropped the nuguigami cloth over his lap in surprise, relief breaking out in a shaky smile over his face. “Ryuzo.” 

Ryuzo squinted at the room. This looked like they were still in the Adachi estates. “You missed another fight. As usual.” He tried to sit up, wincing as Jin helped with gentle hands. “I don’t even understand what happened and I still nearly died. What is wrong with people?” 

Jin sheathed the katana and put away the cleaning gear. “Lady Masako caught Lady Hana and got her to confess. It’s a long story.”

“That’s the older sister who she married off to some old widower retainer in the north while she married into a samurai family herself? Let me guess. Jealousy, abusive husband, or homesickness? Maybe all three?” 

“…Lady Masako meant well.”

“Sure she did.” Ryuzo didn’t understand wealthy people sometimes. “How are you feeling?” 

“Better. Soon I’d be ready to ride. We need to storm Castle Kaneda. The Khan is holding my uncle captive there.” 

“One thing at a time,” Ryuzo said, looking around the room. “I’m thirsty.”

“I’ll bring you some water. Or tea.” Jin started to get to his feet. 

“I save that frightening old woman’s grandchildren and don’t even get to drink any of the famous Adachi sake?” Ryuzo asked even as the shoji door opened to admit Masako, holding a tray of fresh bandages, ointment, and a basin of water. 

“A frightening old woman, hm?” Masako said, setting down the tray and rolling up her sleeves.

“You once threatened to have me flogged over _dango_ ,” Ryuzo reminded her, looking to Jin for support. 

“I hoped to scare the mischief out of your soul. I see it didn't work.” Masako glanced at Jin. “I’ll take over here.” 

“Ah,” Jin said, hesitating. 

“Go. You’re crowding the room.” Masako hustled a reluctant Jin out of the room and pointedly closed the shoji door in his face. As she knelt back down by a wary Ryuzo, she bowed deeply and murmured, “Thank you.” 

“We aren’t safe yet,” Ryuzo said, wincing as he shrugged off his kimono. “Lady Miho and Lady Yui…?”

“Did not survive. But my grandchildren have. Thanks to you.” She clasped Ryuzo’s hand tightly. “Thank you.” 

“I’ll count us even if I get some sake and dango,” Ryuzo said, grinning as Masako let out a loud snort and washed her hands, then began to work on his bandages. 

“I always told Lord Shimura that you were a bad influence on Jin. Still, while you remain a shameless rogue, at least you don’t lack for courage.” Masako ‘accidentally’ kneaded a palm into a bruise as Ryuzo started to protest. 

“Ow, ow, ow…” 

“Be quiet. Are you a man or a child?” 

“If this is how the Adachi clan does gratitude, I shudder to think what you do to your enemies,” Ryuzo grumbled, wincing as Masako cleaned his wounds. 

“You’ll see what we do to our enemies. I haven’t forgotten that the Mongols killed my husband and my sons.” 

“You’d leave your grandchildren here? The Mongols might attack. Bandits, too.” 

“I won’t be driven from our home. We’ll think of something.” 

This didn’t sound like it would end well, but Ryuzo kept his counsel as Masako finished re-bandaging him. As she washed her bloody hands, she said, “You and Jin.” 

“Yes?” 

“The way you look at each other… You’re both old enough to have learned discretion,” Masako said as she set everything back on the tray. “Trust me when I say that you wouldn’t like the consequences of discovery. Given your ages and your differences in birth.” 

Cold sweat prickled down Ryuzo’s back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“My advice was honestly given. So take it honestly.” Masako inclined her head, opening the shoji door. She walked past Jin with a nod, handing the tray to an attendant. “Get the kashindan some dango.”

“And sake!” Ryuzo called after her, but she ignored him. Jin shook his head as he entered the room and closed the door, kneeling back down. 

“Stop annoying her. We might need her help with the castle.” 

“Two half-dead men and an old woman against the Mongol army?” Ryuzo said.

“One of those ‘half-dead’ men still held off an army to save the Adachi children and me,” Jin said. 

“That wasn’t an army. That was a ragtag band of… I don’t know what they were. Weren’t even ronin.”

Jin stroked Ryuzo’s cheek. “You should take credit where it’s owed. After all this—”

“Let’s survive tomorrow first,” Ryuzo said. He leaned over to kiss Jin hard on the mouth as Jin started to say more, and Jin muffled a strangled noise against him, a hand twisting into Ryuzo’s hair. They kissed until the room felt hot, until Ryuzo’s panting pulled painfully at his wounds. Ryuzo curled his arms around Jin’s waist, heedless of their injuries, and found Jin just as desperate for comfort, burying his mouth against Ryuzo’s throat. 

“Lady Masako said we’re too obvious about this,” Ryuzo murmured, stroking Jin’s back.

“I know. She told me too.” 

“Do you think your uncle knows?” As Jin stiffened, Ryuzo said, “Never mind. Don’t worry about that now.”

“I don’t care if he knows.”

“Of course you do,” Ryuzo said, chuckling. “Most people get through life being scarred by the impossible expectations of only one set of parents, if they’re lucky. You get two, of which the first was a daimyo and the second, a jitō. I’m surprised you aren’t more damaged than you are.” 

“Can you not joke about that?” Jin said, brushing kisses over Ryuzo’s throat. 

“I nearly got killed by a handful of thugs, and there’s no sake in sight. All I can do now is joke,” Ryuzo said with mock sadness. 

“Ah, I remember now how annoying you used to be whenever you got sick.”

“You were even worse, and you didn’t even have the excuse of being sick. Crying over whether I was going to die? Gods, it was enough to make a hale man ill,” Ryuzo said. Jin bit him, hard enough to sting. Ryuzo hissed, batting carefully at Jin’s thigh. “Ow, ow. What’s with you and Lady Masako, hurting people who are already gravely injured, hai—” Ryuzo’s next words stifled into a groan as Jin kissed him, taking his mouth greedily until an attendant knocked politely on the door with a tray of dango and tea.

#

Desperate times made for strange allies, but Ryuzo rather liked the brash thief they’d randomly encountered on their way to Castle Kaneda. Especially since she was a decent archer. _Especially_ after she didn’t run off with their horses, instead coming to look for them on the beach as Ryuzo and Masako dragged Jin out of the surf.

“Is he still alive?” Yuna asked, looking worriedly at Jin’s bloodied body. Hard-eyed and dressed like a man, Yuna walked as quietly as a cat. 

“More or less,” Masako said, sinking onto the sand. “Maa. I’m too old to be diving off the bridge after you young people into the sea.” 

“I _told_ Jin that a frontal assault was a bad idea,” Ryuzo muttered, having agreed with Yuna that they’d need more allies first. “The Khan fights like a demon.” Jin was one of the best swordsmen Ryuzo had ever met, and he could barely hold his own. The clash had ended with the Khan throwing Jin over the bridge with the tip of his halberd. Ryuzo hadn’t given jumping after Jin a second thought. “Though I guess there’s no getting up those cliffs.” 

“My brother is a blacksmith. Help me save him and he’d help you make something for the cliffs,” Yuna said. 

Masako glanced at Ryuzo, who shrugged. “We’ll see what Jin says when he wakes up. Let’s get out of here.”

#

“You’re Jin’s kashindan, right?” Yuna asked as they sat on the threshold of the house in the Adachi estates, drinking sake.

“No, I follow him around, obey him, and keep saving him from himself because I enjoy futility,” Ryuzo said, taking a sip of the cup. Yuna snorted. “I think he was eleven when he asked me to be his kashindan. We’d been friends for a year or so. I was the son of one of his uncle’s kashindan, so we grew up together when he came to Castle Shimura to live.” 

“At eleven?” Yuna poured herself a cup. “Isn’t that young?”

“It is. I think at the time I laughed at him and said it was better to be the jitō's kashindan than the jitō’s nephew's.” Ryuzo chuckled. “He cried.”

“Really?”

“He used to cry a lot. Right when he came to the Castle for the first time, especially. It was why the other kids used to pick on him until I got tired of it and got involved. The constant fighting and yelling was affecting my eel fishing.”

“So how did you end up as the jitō’s nephew’s kashindan?” 

“He offered to pay me more than what a kashindan is usually worth?” Ryuzo knocked back his cup and poured himself another. “Also, Jin has a fair chance of becoming jitō himself in the future. If he doesn’t get himself killed.” 

“Is it strange?” Yuna asked, looking pensively over the courtyard. “Taking a salary from a friend.” 

“Not really. I spend it all on sake. Which he also drinks, because he’s an ass of a boss.” 

Yuna chuckled. She sounded wistful. “The two of you are more like brothers than friends.” 

“Do I act like one of the samurai to you?” 

“You’re less difficult than they are. Possibly even likeable.” Yuna smiled. 

“You say that now because you’re drinking my sake,” Ryuzo said, pleased.

“It’s not your sake; it’s Lady Masako’s sake.” 

“Which she gave _me_ ,” Ryuzo pointed out. About to argue further, he turned when behind him, Jin said, “Ryuzo.” 

Ryuzo got to his feet. Jin stood by the shoji door to his room, his face tight with anger. “Jin? You shouldn’t be up.” Leaving Yuna to the sake, Ryuzo walked over and pulled Jin into the room, closing the shoji door. Why was Jin upset? Over his defeat? “We’ll try another way into the Castle,” Ryuzo said soothingly as he tried to steer Jin back to the futon. “Yuna has a—”

“You were drinking with her.”

“My usual drinking partner got himself skewered by the Khan and thrown into the sea,” Ryuzo told him. “We still have half a cask.” 

“You like her,” Jin accused, and now Ryuzo understood. He grinned slyly, pulling Jin carefully into his arms. 

“What’s there not to like? She’s brave, clever, even pretty.” 

“She’s a _thief_.” 

“A thief who helped save your life.” Ryuzo kissed Jin on the nose, then over his tensed jaw. “Hmm. I’ve never seen this jealous side of you before. I think I like it.” 

Jin growled and bit Ryuzo hard over his chest, almost hard enough to mark the skin. Ryuzo winced but guided Jin down to the futon, only for Jin to grab at his sleeves as Ryuzo tried to get back up. He propped his weight off Jin by his elbows and pretended to scowl. “Injured people should rest,” Ryuzo said.

“I don’t have time to rest. If Yuna’s brother can help us, we need to extract him. Get in contact with Ishikawa-sensei. Maybe find the Straw Hat Ronin, if they’re still headquartered in this part of Tsushima.” 

“Hai, hai. We’ll work on all that tomorrow.” Ryuzo kissed him on the cheek.

Jin wouldn’t let him go. “Stay here with me tonight.”

“And that’s discreet, do you think?” 

“Stay. Please.” 

Ryuzo huffed. When Jin looked at him like that—desperate, his heart on his sleeve—all Ryuzo could do was duck his head and obey. “Fine.”

#

“The ‘Ghost’,” Ryuzo said as they looked out at Komatsu Forge from the loft window of a house across the stream. The water wheel churned, the chimneys belching steam and smoke as Taka and his assistants worked into the night on whatever device Taka was thinking of that might help Jin and Ryuzo scale sheer cliffs.

“I don’t like it,” Jin said. He looked around the loft, exhausted from the protracted liberation and then the defence of the Forge. People were starting to return, but no one had claimed the house they were in as yet. Perhaps no one would. There’d been suspicious dark patches on the ground floor and trails that looked as though bodies had been dragged out at some point, as well as a sour smell. “The things we’ve had to do to get here–” 

“I told you I’d do them on your behalf. That way, if your uncle needs someone to blame, he can blame me.” 

“No.” Jin turned Ryuzo to face him, his mouth set into a thin line. “Never. You will never have to do something like that for me. I’ll never accept anyone taking the fall for my actions. Not you. Not Yuna, or Taka, or anyone.” 

“I know,” Ryuzo said. 

For all that Jin obsessed over breaking the code, over what his uncle would think, to Ryuzo, Jin was the most honourable man he knew. It was easy to follow a prescribed code, especially in times of peace. It was harder to do the right thing, especially if everyone else didn’t deem it the righteous thing. Jin’s honour was as frustrating as it was humbling: the same honour that made Jin incapable of hiding what they were, incapable of lies. This could only go badly. Ryuzo had seen Lord Shimura’s approval of their friendship grow increasingly grudging over the years, heard him start speaking pointedly to Jin about Jin starting a family. Each time, Jin would smile and demur, but there was no putting off his responsibilities forever. 

“After all this,” Jin began. He frowned as Ryuzo pressed fingers to his mouth. 

“Talk about ‘after’ when it’s actually over.” 

Jin pushed Ryuzo’s hand aside. “I’ll have my uncle make you a samurai,” he said.

“Is that what you think I want?”

“Isn’t it?” Jin frowned at him. 

“Become a samurai, marry a samurai wife?” Ryuzo whispered as he drew Jin into his arms and Jin shuddered. “A life where our wives and our children will be friends? As the daimyo of your father’s lands or the jitō of the island, you’d have the time for a drink now and then with me but nothing more. Because that’s all we will be in a life like that. Friends.” 

“Would it?” 

“Would you stand for it, Jin?” Ryuzo asked, walking Jin over to the pallet of clean straw in the corner of the loft by long-looted shelves bare of anything but empty pots. “Jealous as you were of Yuna?”

Jin’s eyes flashed. He hooked Ryuzo’s feet out from under him with his foot, sending them both crashing over the straw. Ryuzo yelped, wincing as still-healing wounds pulsed with pain. “Jin!” Ryuzo complained. Jin growled, pinning him to the straw, kissing him angrily, teeth scouring against Ryuzo’s lower lip. 

Ryuzo pressed his palms to Jin’s cheeks and kissed him back until he’d gentled Jin’s temper, until Jin pressed apologetic kisses over his mauled lips. They pulled the clan armour off Jin, stacking it haphazardly by the pallet, their hands growing urgent as Ryuzo stripped out of his hakama and kimono. As their fundoshi joined the heap of clothes, their urgency turned restless, exploring each other anew with feverish caresses. 

“I want you inside me,” Jin said, reaching for the pouches tangled in his obi. 

Ryuzo caught his wrist, even as lust shot through him in a gritty surge. “We might have to ride out tomorrow.” 

“So?” 

“Do you even have supplies?”

“I have choji oil.” 

“…Is that even usable for this?” Ryuzo said, partly appalled, partly titillated. The latter won out: he began to laugh as Jin grumbled and fished out the jar from his pouches, struggling with the stopper. “I’m never going to look at your blades the same way again. Also, if we both get terrible rashes in unmentionable places, I’m not going to be the one explaining it to a healer.” 

“You talk so much,” Jin complained as he got the oil over his fingers. He bent over Ryuzo to kiss him, growing breathless as he worked himself open, as he got extra oil smeared over Ryuzo’s belly. Ryuzo rubbed his thumbs over Jin’s peaking nipples, pinching them as Jin flinched and groaned, his fingers growing impatient. Gods. This gorgeous, blessed, infuriating man was going to be the death of him. Ryuzo kissed the sentiment into the hollow of Jin’s throat, into the hungry press of his mouth. He swallowed the groans yoked out from deep within Jin as Jin slicked up his cock and fed it inside him, an impossible, damning fit of heat and ecstasy. Ryuzo’s breaths broke into sobs against Jin’s mouth as he struggled to stay still. He whined Jin’s name as Jin settled all the way down over his lap. 

They’d done this before in better times, in better places, but this now between them was somehow more visceral than before, simpler. Here with no titles and worse to their names Ryuzo could give Jin what he wanted: a lover’s touch bereft of hesitation or lies. Jin settled his weight and set Ryuzo’s hands on his hips, rocking against him at first, then riding him in sharp, hungry jerks as Ryuzo got a spit-slicked hand on Jin’s cock to stroke him. He braced his feet on the ground for a better angle, letting Jin lead, bucking against Jin’s rhythm as Jin tossed his head back and bit down hard on his wrist to stifle a moan. Gods. Ryuzo had to dig his fingers tightly into his palms to stop himself from coming there and then. He sat up and rolled Jin onto his back on the straw, hiking up one muscular thigh to spread Jin wide, rolling his hips until he found the angle that made Jin grab wildly for their clothes, hauling over a fistful of Ryuzo’s kimono and stuffing the fabric into his mouth to strangle his yell. 

Ryuzo grinned, pressing deeper as he bent to kiss Jin playfully on the cheek. “Do you need that to be quiet, Lord Sakai?” 

Jin glared at him and grabbed Ryuzo by the back of his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. Before their lips met, Ryuzo drove deep with a sharp thrust and laughed as Jin arched and wailed. He tangled Jin’s hands in the cloth and fucked Jin roughly until his cries broke into hoarse gasps, until Jin trembled and moaned Ryuzo’s name as his cock spat his release over the straw. Only then did Ryuzo ease up, letting go of Jin’s thigh, leaning down to cover Jin’s body with his own and kiss him until legs wrapped over his hips and urged him on. He took Jin slowly until Jin was hardening again, until the air burned in their lungs between their kisses, until with hushed sighs they found release together.

#

As Ryuzo cast his line into the river, Yuna sat down on her haunches beside him. “My brother says he’s come up with something and will need a few days to get it right,” she said.

“Good.” The hook plopped into the river, baited with a wriggling worm. The day had barely dawned. “You’re up early.” 

“Plenty of us are.” Yuna prodded Ryuzo’s shoulder. “I think you and Lord Sakai should ride off for now. Come back in half a week.”

“Did something happen?”

Yuna sniffed. “No, but if you’re both going to spend every night waking the dead, the townsfolk are going to think that Komatsu is haunted by several vengeful ghosts, not just the Ghost.” 

“I’ll keep your feedback in mind,” Ryuzo said, though he grinned as Yuna rolled her eyes. 

“Does the Jitō know?” she asked more soberly. “About you and Jin.” 

“I don’t think so.”

“If he does, what then?” 

“I suppose I’d have to prove him wrong by marrying you,” Ryuzo said and laughed as Yuna growled and smacked him in the arm. “Ow, ow, ow, I’m injured, I’m injured.” 

“You’d better treat me to breakfast as well.” 

“Make your own breakfast,” Ryuzo shot back. 

“Some husband you’d be,” Yuna said tartly, though thankfully she wandered off and stopped scaring the fish. 

Jin woke up by the time Ryuzo set the house’s kitchen to rights and even found a small stash of rice and pickles in a hidden nook. He walked with a marked limp and made a face as knelt beside Ryuzo. “How are you this morning, Lord Sakai?” Ryuzo asked with a cheeky smirk as he finished grilling the filleted fish. 

“You didn’t have to be so rough,” Jin said as he folded his hands neatly in his lap. 

“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time,” Ryuzo said as he set the fish on a plate between them with a drizzle of soy and served them both a portion of rice. “Lady Masako was spotted near Komoda Beach. We should check on her. If you feel up to riding, my lord.” 

“You’re only so polite when you’re making fun of me,” Jin said, eating with a grace that Ryuzo didn’t bother with. “Ryuzo. What _do_ you want? If it isn’t to be a samurai.” 

“Hmm. I’d like some iriyaki nahe right now, or maybe some taishu soba—”

“Be serious.” 

“I want you to survive the war,” Ryuzo said, picking at his bowl of rice with his chopsticks, “in a way that doesn’t break your heart.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jin said, puzzled, but Ryuzo smiled wryly and picked up a large portion of the fish, shoving it over Jin’s bowl. 

“Eat. We have a long ride from here to Komoda.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @manic_intent  
> writing and prompt policy: https://manicintent.carrd.co/  
> \--  
> Refs:  
> Things I had to look up for this fic: whether 13th century choji oil can be used as lube lol gg. Answer: Not sure, probably not, but cooking oil wasn’t commonly used at that point in time in Japan (oil was more for lamps) so, let us handwave this question of toxicity. I’m sorry, Jin and Ryuzo. Maybe they did get terrible rashes. 
> 
> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/brief-history-samurai-warfare-battles-armour-myths-facts/  
> https://japanese-wiki-corpus.github.io/history/Kashindan.html
> 
> https://jpninfo.com/2711 apparently prior to Edo period it’s nahe, not nabe.
> 
> https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/5187/ & https://www.tofugu.com/japan/gay-samurai/ wakashudo was kinda common in this era, but it's meant to be between youth / older samurai, and end when the youth becomes an adult.


End file.
